


Waiting

by Emeli_Thorne



Series: My Forever Is Yours [20]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dad!Shane, F/M, Fertility Issues, Sad Shane, discussion about fertility, making a cake, shane loves his family, this fic got a lot longer than expected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-08-21 14:56:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16578683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeli_Thorne/pseuds/Emeli_Thorne
Summary: Tess is feeling down so Shane and Sylvie decide to cheer her up with a cake.Part 2 features Shane and Tess' talk about their family and Tess' struggles with getting pregnant.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PF23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PF23/gifts).



> Prompts by @allinourprivate-traps and @outofbluecomesgreen which I combined into this fic and adjusted it to fit my general story. Sorry not sorry for getting so serious with this, I know you aimed for fluff-filled fic. Hope you guys like it anyway.

“Tess, please. Just... Talk to me,” with his hand on the side of her face Shane begs her, but she looks so weary and disinterested. Her gaze is empty, her mind seemingly miles away from their home, him.

“I can't. Can you just leave?” Closing her eyes, Tess pulls the duvet over herself and turns her back to him, effectively ending any kind of conversation they could have started.

Without another word - though he wants to curse at her and tell her how selfish she is being - Shane leaves their bedroom, the door behind him purposely left ajar in case Tess needed anything. However, the bitterness he’s feeling right now tells him she won’t be asking for anything from him anytime soon.

The hollowness of her words knocked the air out of Shane, although he tried to hide it until after he was out of the bedroom. Only then did he allow his own feelings to surface.

This, the way his fiancée is now brings back sour memories from a few years back. Memories so viciously engraved into his brain that just thinking about them makes him sick, makes him panic. Shane fears that this could just be a prologue into _that_ state – the state of extremes. Fighting from morning till midnight or ignoring each other, hoping that eventually one of them will take the hint and just go.

Shane remembers, crystal clear, how it began and he remembers how it ended, which is why he is determined not to let Tess have another spiral and give up.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, his gaze falls to Sylvie, their three-year-old daughter, who is currently having a tea party with her stuffed animals in the middle of the living room while a cartoon is playing on television. She looks marvellously oblivious to her mother and father’s struggles – as it should be. Neither of them would ever want their problems and moods to reflect on her.

She’s too precious to them, their little sunshine.

Shane takes a deep breath and draws his hands down his stubbled face, as if putting on a mask to hide his current feelings of distress. Then he calls for Sylvie, interrupting her tea party and earning himself a stern look of disapproval from his daughter.

“Yes, dada?” she pours some imaginary tea out of her toy teapot into a cup in front of her without so much as a glance towards Shane.

Even thought she seems angry because he interrupted her, he knows what he’s about to suggest will be considered a worth the disruption.

He grins at her, “Wanna make a cake with me?”

Her squeal indicates an affirmative answer and makes him laugh, his first true emotion since this morning.

Sylvie rushes to his side, her ponytail swinging behind her, and takes his hand, pulling him towards the kitchen with all her might, which is basically immeasurable.

Nevertheless, Shane like any good parent, Shane pretends she’s stronger than him and fakes tripping and almost falling over. It makes her giggle and cover her mouth with her hand, but she apologises with “sowwy, dada” then starts towards the kitchen again.

His “Slow down, baby girl,” falls on deaf ears though so he just shakes his head in disapproval.

In the kitchen, Shane helps Sylvie wash her hands and he re-ties her hair so there are no loose strands. Then he starts taking out the ingredients and setting them on the counter as Sylvie climbs on a stool and plops on it, leaning forward on her elbows.

Because he’s rummaging through a cupboard looking for a mixer amidst all other appliances, he doesn’t hear her speak the first time. When she yells the question at him once he’s turned towards her, Shane’s left frozen.

“We makin’ cake fo’ mama?”

The question makes him panic and almost drop the mixer, wondering how much of her mother’s behaviour Sylvie has noticed or if she’s heard their little argument. He doesn’t reply, instead asks her, “Why do you ask that?”

Sylvie shrugs, bites her lip, her eyes wandering around the kitchen.

“’Cause she sad. I don’t like mama bein’ sad.”

“Sweetheart,” sighing, Shane looks for a simple answer in his head when Sylvie continues.

“Mama mad on me?”

 “What? No, baby no.”

Taking a seat next to her, Shane cups her face, leaning his forehead against hers. Her big eyes are trained on him as she chews her lips, waiting for him to elaborate.

He’s always hated these serious talks with kids. They are too innocent, unsullied by world’s problems, unburdened in the most amazing way. It flashes in his mind when Rick and Lori were going through some shit and how it affected Carl. The kid was only seven at the time yet he was aware of his parents’ relationship not working. One day, while Shane was dropping him off to school, Carl asked him if it was something he did that had his parents fighting all the time. It broke Shane’s heart to see the pain on this boy’s face and the guilty marring it.

He doesn’t want to put his and Tess’ problems on Sylvie because he doesn’t want to see that same expression on his baby girl’s face; he doesn’t want her to worry about something out of her control.

“Mama is just... She’s not feeling well today but it has nothing to do with you, pumpkin. She loves you more than anything, she could never be angry with you.”

“Cake gonna make ‘er ‘appy?”

He sighs, waits a bit before answering. “I don’t know. But we can try. If we put all our love into it, maybe we’ll cheer her up.”

Sylvie grins then and fist bumps the air. “Yaaaay. I doesn’t like sad mama. Huwt me here,” she rubs her chest and sniffs.

“Oh, honey.”

Shane takes her on his lap and hugs her, kissing the top of her head. He’s out of words, so tired of everything.

*     *     *     *     *    

They set out to make the cake which is fairly simple and shouldn’t cause them too much trouble. Shane has Sylvie whisking eggs and butter while he measures flour and other ingredients needed. Sylvie’s singing along to a song from _Moana,_ giggling and exclaiming “O-oh” when some of the egg mixture ends up on her dress. Shane just shakes his head and tells her to be careful to which she nods and they are on their tasks once again.

Shane puts flour, sugar and other ingredients in then takes the bowl from Sylvie and finishes combining it all.

She inquires about his job – something she has never done before – and if he’s a superhero because he catches bad guys.

He doesn’t really know where she got this from – the part about his job, him being a hero – since Tess and he try their best not to discuss his job in front of their daughter. They don’t want to scare her, especially since some situations often seem scarier to little kids than they are. Shane makes sure his baby girl never sees his gun and they don’t let her watch any violent cartoons and movies.

So when he replies her, “No, not a superhero”, Sylvie’s eyes crinkle and, after pondering for a few moments tells him, “Cowse not. You don’t have cape. Just shiwt.  I make you cape,” and that is that. She returns to her task without so much as a glance at her dad.

Chuckling, Shane is at first confused wondering what shirt she is talking about, and when he remembers that _Captain America_ shirt Tess bought him last year when they went to see that movie, Shane kisses the top of her head while suppressing a smile. It’s his turn to ask her about this whole superhero part; she tells him some of the boys she plays with at the park talk about them all the time, that some of them even have shirts and sippy cups and toys just like those superheroes. And since they fight the bad guys and her daddy does the same, she thought he might be a superhero too.

It leaves him stunned.

She’s such a bright and inquisitive child that never ceases to amaze him. Tess’ parents often relate her childhood stories and draw parallels between their daughter and granddaughter.

As much as he loves that, that there is so much of Tess in her, he wishes his parents were alive so he could ask them if they see anything of him in Sylvie. He has no other family, save for his brother, and not even Wade can tell him if Sylvie resembles him in anything since he had already left home several years prior to their parents’ deaths. Plus, his brother has never been the affectionate and caring type so expecting him to remember anything from their childhood is ludicrous, Shane tells himself.

As they continue making the cake, the conversation ceases and music fills in the silence. Shane yells over the music to Sylvie to hand him walnuts and cranberries and when she asks him if she could mix it in, he lets her.

It’s difficult at first, he can tell, but soon she gets both hands in and by the time she’s over, Sylvie has dough all the way up to her elbows. She doesn’t seem too bothered by it, her only reaction being giggles in between assessing her dad’s reaction.

He can’t blame her, he let her do this knowing she would make a mess of herself. After he helps her wash her hands and dry them on a dishtowel, he lets her go back to the living room and her dolls before he finishes up and puts the cake in the oven to bake.

Meanwhile, he checks on Tess – she is asleep, her face still wet from crying when he leans in to kiss her puffy cheek. It hurts him to see her like that, to be so lost and unable to help her.

Still, he’s hurting for himself too. He didn’t outright show it to Tess and maybe that’s the problem. She must be feeling all alone in this, thinking he doesn’t care when in fact this whole situation fills him with dread.

Exiting the bedroom, he plops onto the couch, elbows set on his knees, his hand rubbing the back of his head in a tense manner. When Sylvie takes a break from her game and climbs into his lap, he hugs her fiercely. Sylvie throws her arms around him and hugs him back, oblivious to the effect her affection has on her father who is close to tears. Shane almost cries into his baby girl’s shoulder, sobs already shaking his body.

But, he doesn’t. He keeps it in, sucks it all back in, saves it for some other time when breaking apart will be allowed.

“You ‘kay, dada?” Sylvie asks him worriedly, her gentle, tiny hands cradling his face, her big eyes focused on him.

Looking at her, this beautiful, innocent being in front of him, Shane stutters before lying to her, assuring her he’s just tired. He files this under a white lie, but he still doesn’t feel comfortable lying to his daughter. Something about it just does not sit well with him and he’s already planning on making it up to her when the timer sounds off.

Sylvie runs to the kitchen first followed by Shane yelling for her not to touch the oven lest she burns herself.

He takes the oven mittens and carefully takes out the cake. Sylvie’s hand goes for it immediately, but Shane manages to prevent her from getting injured and scolds her for not listening to his warning.

It is another ten minutes before the cake is cool enough to be cut and set onto a plate. Then, Sylvie grabs the plate off the counter and fumbles with it a bit before she succeeds in keeping all the pieces on the plate. Shane is right behind her and opens the bedroom door so she can go in.

Sylvie goes around the bed and sets the plate on a nightstand before climbing into the bed next to her mom and shakes her awake.

“Hey, baby. What are you doin’ here?” Tess’ voice is raspy, her eyes barely opened as she cuddles her daughter in her arms.

“Dada and me made cake.”

Tess looks up and sees him then, leaned against a wall with his hands tucked behind his back.

Shane tries not to look at her, cautious of Tess’ state of mind from a few hours ago.

She calls his name then, breaking through his thoughts, and when he does look at her, she’s got Sylvie in her arms and is mouthing _I’m sorry_ to him, her lips quivering and he knows then her behaviour from this morning has much deeper roots than he thought.

Patting the space on the bed next to her, Tess invites him to come sit with them and the Walshes eat the cake while Sylvie relates Tess how they made the cake and how she got eggs and flour all over her clothes. Tess laughs in all the right places but something in her eyes has Shane worried and eager to finally hash things out. Before they are all done, he asks Sylvie if she wants to continue playing and she gladly leaves them for the sake of her dolls.

Now alone, Tess sighs and turns to him as Shane adjust on the bed, leaning his back against the headboard.

“I owe you an apology.”

“I... I don’t want an apology. Can you just tell me what’s going on.”


	2. Chapter 2

It takes her awhile to speak.

Shane lets the silence linger over them as he listens to Sylvie’s giggles coming from the living room. Smirking slightly and closing his eyes, he allows that moment to transport him out of this room, out of the uncomfortable atmosphere that starts to choke him more viciously with every passing second.

He thinks Tess might not speak at all. Maybe she changed her mind, maybe she doesn’t want to clear things up just yet. He can't say he's eager to talk either.

Tess says then, voice trembling, head turned away from him, “I got my period.”

Silence.

She tries to elaborate, her breath shaky, “I was late a few days and I thought...”

Sighing, he finishes her sentence because he already knows, he doesn't need her to confirm it. “You thought you were pregnant.”

A nod followed by more silence.

Another shaky intake of breath.

The rustling of sheets as Tess draws her legs further up and crosses her arms on her knees.

Sylvie is now singing a song from a cartoon, her chirpy voice carrying over into the gloomy bedroom. Shane imagines her twirling around the room, her soft curls bouncing up and down, a dreamy look on her cherubic face. She tries to hit the high notes of the song but her voice breaks and gets croaky. His daughter doesn’t seem to mind as he can still hear her singing though a little out of breath.

Shane focuses back on Tess. Running his hand through his hair he sits up, adjusts himself on the bed having nothing else to do, unsure what to say to her. There’s something in his chest, squeezing his heart, keeping the air out of his lungs. It's the heaviness of their distance, the looming presence of something that is not there but he knows Tess wishes it finally was.

He chooses to stay factual though the bitterness still seeps into his words.

“Tess, it’s been like this for months now.” He looks in her direction to find her staring at the wall facing the bed, expression unreadable. It annoys him that she ignores him as if he weren’t there at all. He tells her, more sternly this time, “You keep expecting it and when it doesn’t happen, you shut me out.”

There’s even more resentment in his voice than seconds before; for a moment he feels ashamed. Then he remembers all the times, all the months they went through this exact same situation and every time it exhausts him even more. It’s like Tess is oblivious to his pain, cocooned in her own that she doesn’t realise how her behaviour, her actions affect him.

Bowing her head and keeping her arms crossed, Tess appears to be struggling with her words. Her breathing is laboured – Shane recognises it as a sign of her anxiety. When she finally speaks in almost a whisper, it is infused in her every word. “I feel like you wouldn’t understand.”

“Why?” His eyebrows are furrowed, confusion riddling his face.

When Tess finally turns her head and looks at him, her gaze is full of fury, her body vibrating with it. Jumping off the bed, she snaps, gesturing with her hands at him as if for additional insult.

“Because! You’re so obliviously happy all the time. You go to work, do your job and when you come home you’re always so fucking... content. You and Sylvie could tear this house apart with your happiness. And I...”

A pause to catch her breath and shove a few flyaway strands off her face. Leaning against the window, Tess puts her arms around her middle, voice breaking and getting quieter. “I feel useless. When we decided to have another baby, I thought it was  _my_ time to be happy.”

Shane forgets to breathe, air becoming a foreign concept to him in that moment. His body freezes, muscles tense up as he swallows each and every insult stuck to his tongue.

Could she have said anything worse? How could she be so hateful?

He barely croaks out as her words keep stinging his heart,

“You not happy with me, with Sylvie? That it?” Raising his voice Shane gets up, backing off towards the wall. "We not enough for you, ha?”

“Of course you are!”

Tess’s response breaks the last barrier keeping him from reacting in a way he usually would - by taming in his rabid temper and being as cool as he can be.

“Then you’re right. I don’t fuckin’ understand. Maybe I’m just that stupid. Because I’m not happy all the time.”

Shoving his finger in her direction, he raises his voice again. As he speaks, he can hear his heart pounding in his ears but nothing of Sylvie’s sweet voice. His own emotions are clouding it so that he doesn’t even stop to ask himself is their daughter could hear her parents screaming match.

“You know better than anyone what this fucking job does to me, how it makes me feel sometimes. The only reason I’m still even remotely sane it’s cause I have you two. When I walk through that door, I leave all that shit behind me ‘cause I want none of it to touch our kid or you. It’s not fucking fair of you to even mention it.”

Shane barely registers the way his whole body is shaking with anger, his gaze pointedly aimed at his fiancée. His fists clench at his sides as he turns his back to her and counts to ten in his head.

He feels sick, bile rising up his throat.

Tess yells back at him, but he still won't look at her. Waits for her to mention the elephant in the room, to step across that nonexistent threshold both of them have refused to cross for years, before that night, before Sylvie.

“It’s different for me, okay! Our first time, th-that first baby."

And there it - the bubble bursts, Tess crosses the line and the painstakingly sewn up wounds start to bleed again.

She continues, her voice somehow distant, alien to his ears yet tortuously familiar.

"You know what it did to us."

He does.

He remembers. 

The silence, the arguing, ignoring each other then clinging to each other's existence for fear of losing themselves.

The nights he spent sleeping on the couch because just touch Tess, having her in his arms reminded him of their loss.

Leaving their home, months of added suffering, avoiding each other as if a mere encounter would restart the fire that consumed them so slowly, stripped them of everything that made them up and left them nothing but singed bones.

Shane hears the covers on the bed rustling again and when he turns, Tess is sitting on the bed again, hands intertwined.

"And then Sylvie came along and it was perfect. We were perfect. And I thought for once we could... that we deserved more.”

His anger evaporates as soon as she says it, and he is by her side moments later. Hugging her from behind, holding her to him fiercely.

He starts to understand her fears. “We can’t rush things, darlin'. Doctor Greene said so. We have to be patient.”

“What if I can’t? What if I can’t be patient?”

“Is it so bad if we don’t have another baby?” Shane dares to ask just as Tess lays her hand over his forearm and sighs tiredly.

“No, but... god, I don’t know how to say this." A pause just as her body tenses. "I feel like there’s something wrong with me, okay? I look at Lori and Judith and it makes me tear my hair out out of jealousy because I want that too."

Turning in his arms, Tess cups his face, nose pressed against his, eyes full of tears. "I want to have another baby with you. I want Sylvie to have a little brother or sister she can play with, someone who’ll have her back. And I want to have another little Walsh running around this house, screaming their lungs out." Her voice is full of want and hope that it breaks him again and again and again. "My... my mind keeps telling me what a failure and my body keeps confirming it every month."

Shane can't tell when  the first tear glides down his cheek, nor can he tell when his face gets wet and both of them start crying, holding each other as if letting go would mean the absolute end.

Rem- remember ou-our very first date? You told me you wanted to have a shitload of kids.” Tess's voice trembles and her pain, mixed with his own, shake him to his core.

Smoothing her hair down her back, he tries to console her, “Yeah. But Tess-”

Breaking from his firm grasp, Tess rasps, “What if I can’t give you that? What if I’m broken? What if- if that baby broke me, destroyed me somehow and I can’t get pregnant again?”

He wipes his face then hers, then clasps her hands and tugs on them gently, indicating he wants her to look at him.

“What do you think will happen if we don’t have any more kids?”

Tess lays her head on his chest, hiding her face in his shirt, which makes her words come out muffled. “I’m scared you’re gonna leave me and I wouldn’t be able... You could leave me and find another girl and have babies with her and forget all about Sylvie and I... I can’t even think about that, it makes me nauseous.”

Shane’s silent for a long time, stunned by her confession. It never occurred to him Tess would be doubting his love and commitment to his family, _their_ family. It’s another blow, one that hurts as much as the ones before, maybe even more.

Pulling back, he evades her gaze, though he still keeps their hands laced together absentmindedly. “Do you honestly think I could ever leave you, my family, for anyone else?” It lasts a second longer then he is on his feet, walking away from her. “That I could leave my daughter and get myself another family? Is that what you think of me?” The last sentence is uttered in a cry as his legs start to give out from under him. He takes hold of a dresser, his mind going hazy with anger again.

Tess hurries to explain herself then, arms reaching out for him, crying again.

“No, no! I don’t think so, my heart doesn’t feel that. But my head... I know it’s not rational, I know I have to be patient, that we have to keep trying. I know all of that. But every month that passes we’re one more step away from... I can’t take it anymore.”

Biting his lip, Shane rakes his fingers through his hair again, takes a breath then cups Tess’s face and tells her,

“Listen to me. Our baby girl loves you. I love you. You matter to me more than you will ever know. I could never leave you! Not you not Sylvie, for anyone else. Don’t you see I don’t care about anything, anyone else 'cept you two?”

Tess looks like she wants to reply but Shane doesn’t let her interrupt him, speaking resolutely and from the heart. “I’m happy with what I have. And if we have another kid, it’ll be great. If we don’t that’s fine too. We already are a family, Tess. You, me and Sylvie. Nothing and no one could ever change that. Don’t do this to yourself, don’t punish yourself for things that are out of your control.”

There are many more things he could say to her to reassure her, to assuage her fears, but sometimes words fail him.

So instead, he kisses Tess with as much fervour as he can, holds her firmly against him one would think they are one body and doesn’t let go until their lips start hurting and they lose breath.

Their daughter’s calling out for them that nudges them out of their bubble, though neither of them mind.

“We good?” Shane asks once more because he needs reassurance as well.

“We’re good, babe. We’re perfect.” With a smile, Tess kisses him once more before they go to join their daughter.

*     *     *     *     *

They find Sylvie dozing off on the couch. Tess takes a blanket and pulls it over their daughter, tucking her in. Kissing her forehead, Tess lets her be as Shane turns off the TV so the sound won’t bother her.

They both head to the kitchen which is in complete mess. Turning towards Shane, Tess raises her brow at him as he gives her a guilty look, accompanied by his trademark smirk.

“I might have forgotten to do the dishes. But I made you that delicious cake.”

“So, I have to do it now?” Tess exhales, rolling up the sleeves of her shirt though a smile does appear on her face.

Shane’s right behind her, bumping her hip with his. “Nah. We’ll do it together. Couple time.”

He kisses her neck then goes to turn on some music. He joins Tess at the sink and they quickly start with their tasks – Tess is doing the washing and Shane the drying.

All the while, they manage to share a few more kisses and talk about mundane things before they end up swaying in each other’s arms to the sound of their favourite song.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments feed my inspiration :D
> 
> If you love Shane as much as I do, check out my other Shane fics
> 
> Find me on tumblr at lightblindingme :D


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